This is a U.S. national stage of application No. PCT/DE97/02972, filed on Dec. 15, 1997. Priority is claimed on that application and on the following application(s) Country: Germany, Application No.: 196 53 692.8, Filed: Dec. 16, 1996; Country: Germany, Application No.: 197 54 336.7, Filed: Nov. 24, 1997.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to a method for the identification of a location, and to a terminal unit and central station.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The identification of a location by means of input into a terminal unit can be used for different purposes. In particular, it is advantageous for the identification of an interrogated starting location, destination, etc. for a desired route in a navigation device. In remote-controlled (offboard) navigation, the information must be sent from the terminal unit to a central station. In this regard, location designations can be very long, so that the effort involved in input into the terminal unit and in sending from the terminal unit to a central traffic station is relatively great. The problem in implementing the possibility of entering a location designation in the terminal unit in truncated (abbreviated) form and completing the abbreviated location based on an address file in the terminal unit consists in that the terminal unit must contain a complete list of locations, and correction or updating is time-consuming. Entering individual characters with immediate transmission from the terminal unit to the central traffic station and the sending back of locations identifiable by the previously entered characters is relatively expensive due to the required telecommunications and, in the case of packet-mode data transfer, is technologically demanding and inconvenient to operate due to the transit times and differences in transit time for different packets. One reason for this is the relatively large positive list (namely, the list of location designations which start with the character string that was entered in the terminal unit). However, the transmission of a complete location designation is prone to error and inconvenient with respect to inputting and is time-consuming and expensive with respect to transmission; beyond this, its form may not necessarily be compatible with its form in the list of location designations in the central station (Frankfurt a.M. or Frankfurt am Main).
Therefore, the object of the invention is an identification of a location designation, especially a location designation relating to a requested route in a navigation terminal unit, which is as simple, ergonomic, efficient and trouble-proof as possible, economizes on telecommunications costs and which is nevertheless compatible between the terminal unit and the central station.
The invention enables a simple, ergonomic, trouble-proof identification of a place by the user of a terminal unit, especially by the driver of a vehicle with a navigation terminal unit, which is advantageous with respect to transmission and is nevertheless compatible between the terminal unit and the central station. For this purpose, the terminal unit does not require a large storage of the type needed for complete storage of all of the locations in the terminal unit, so that the terminal unit can be constructed in an economical manner. The list of location designations can be updated in a simple manner. The location designation may be, for example, a city, a road, a partial area of a road, an intersection, geographic information such as mountain, hill, valley, a bridge, etc., a part of a city, a public building, etc. It is suitable particularly for identification of places, such as cities or highways, that are designated as a whole.
The characters entered can be, in particular, numbers and/or letters. A character string is a series of characters, especially in the sequence in which they are entered. The interrogated character string can appear in different positions in a location designation; in particular, it can be the start of a location designation; in particular, it can be compared with the start of location designations. The positive list is a list of location designations which are known in the central station. An exception list is a list of character strings (entered characters) with which too many names on the position list start, so that the transmission of all of these names in the positive list from the central station to the terminal unit for the selection of the desired name would be too extensive.
The method can be realized in different ways. The positive list is advisably stored in the central station.
The exception list can be stored in the terminal unit and/or in the central station. It can be determined in the central station or, particularly, in the terminal unit whether the interrogated character string is contained in the exception list.
The transmission from the terminal unit to the central station is advisably carried out via radio, especially via mobile radio. Packet mode can be carried out in particular by means of short messages such as GSM SMS.
The method can be realized in a terminal unit and/or in a central station especially as a program. At least portions of the program are implemented in the terminal unit and in the central station for interrogation, communications and for access to data stored therein. Which program parts are used and where the program parts are used depends on the way in which the method is actually configured.
Further features and advantages of the invention are indicated in the following description of an embodiment example with reference to the drawing.